


Howl Like The Moon

by Twitchiest



Series: Apocalypse Girl [7]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Dark, F/F, F/M, Multi, Post-Apocalypse, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 22:50:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6726568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twitchiest/pseuds/Twitchiest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She does not like these exposed roads.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Howl Like The Moon

**_One_ **

The trip to Bay's home is long and cold. The further inland they go, the colder it gets. They spend a month just travelling until a city, a real one, looms on the horizon.

"Dedham," Bay says, spelling it out literally. Dead-ham. Siti ducks her head, smiling, and looks away.

They're getting better with the signs, Siti thinks, but that's because everyone's using them when they talk. They're all as bad at them as she is.

It is... a comfort.

She does not like these exposed roads.

Ghost seems to lean towards the city. Siti doesn't like it at all.

**_Two_ **

Siti doesn't want to be alone. Not in Dedham, where there are throngs of people ferrying around metal and picking through collapsed buildings, where heat pounds out of huge coal-fueled, furnaces, where liquid steel pours golden into moulds, where thick, reeking smoke leaves black dust on your skin, where there are strange men who don't understand why she's here, why she's alive, what purpose she serves.

Ghost is always busy, talking trade deals.

Siti flees into the grey maze of half-collapsed buildings, far from the day and night pounding, curls up in a small space and dreams, fitful and alone.

**_Three_ **

When she wakes, Ghost has found her, is dozing fitfully across from her, a basket near her hand. It's raining. The city looks better in the rain. Smells clean. Siti leans against a window of rain and leaf-stained glass and watches water puddling in the potholed streets.

When Ghost stirs, she sees her. Gets up and leans against her, hugging her. "I'm sorry," she says. "I forgot to take care of you, too."

Siti keeps her hands together.

"Let me try again," Ghost says, and kisses the side of her neck.

That, Siti likes, and the rest of it, too.

**_Four_ **

First snow falls over Dedham. It doesn't stay near the furnaces, but when Ghost takes her away from the beating heat of the settlement, Siti freezes. She's wrapped up in jumpers and coat and socks and trousers, but it's not enough. It's never enough.

"My little problem," Ghost says, warm. "Whatever will I do with you?"

There's no wind, but slowly, Siti chills to the bone.

Then she catches a cold, and Ghost throws her hands up. "Okay," she says. "We'll leave." And they leave, a healthy convoy and a single sick, miserable, sneezing Siti wrapped in blankets and shivering.

**_Five_ **

All Siti registers is that Manor has people who smile and treat her kindly, and there is warmth if she wants it.

For her first week there, these are the only things that matter.

She spends her days curled up in a corner of the kitchen being fed breads dipped in honey, and her nights on a chair in her room, because she cannot bear to use the soft bed.

The only person who does not smile at her appears on the eighth day, standing over her in dawn light. Siti blinks up, flinches back from that cold, hard-eyed stare.

**_Six_ **

Ghost says, "Be nice."

Ghost is sitting on the bed.

"This is Boss," she says. "She wanted to meet you."

Boss stares down at Siti. Siti stares back up.

"When you said you were bringing someone home," Boss says, tone soft, "I expected a little more."

Ghost bristles. "You don't know her yet."

"Neither do you."

Siti shapes a query. Ghost signs back that this is the person who runs Manor.

"Sit properly," Boss says.

Slow, careful, Siti uncurls herself and sits like Ghost would, exposed, vulnerable.

"She can't talk," Ghost says.

Boss' eyes linger on the scarf and nods.

**_Seven_ **

Boss says, calm, "Take it off."

Ghost nods. Siti's hands tremble as she unwinds the scarf.

The old woman leans in and traces the jagged scar, not noticing, maybe ignoring, Siti's trembles. She covers it with her hand, palm flat. "You're right," Boss says. "Not a knife. The lines are wrong. Glass?"

Siti flinches.

"Glass," Boss says. "I'm impressed. You're a survivor." She steps back. Siti wraps it up, away, secret again.

"Good choice," Boss says. Not to Siti. "She'll be useful."

"I didn't bring her home for that," Ghost says.

Boss glances at her. "Of use, cub, not used."

**_Eight_ **

On command, Ghost fetches a chair for Boss. Boss sits opposite Siti, a body-length between them, and says, "Tell me what happened."

Siti tells, as best she can. Ghost translates, quiet, but Boss' eyes watch Siti's hands, her face.

It is not something Siti likes to tell. She lived, she was happy. She loved a man and he took her from home, and they were happy, but he was angry so often, no matter how she tried to please him. He never hit her, not until the time when they were in bed, and he-

Her words always falter here.

**_Nine_ **

"He what?" Ghost says. Siti doesn't look at her.

"He gave you the scar," Ghost says, her voice not rising, but more intense. "Didn't he."

"Get out," Boss says.

Ghost says, "No."

Boss turns to her, like warning thunder, the low rumble from a cloudy sky that foretells the cracking, the breaking, the sea lashing, the rain falling fit to drown, the world outside becoming cold and dark and dangerous. Ghost meets it, face set, arms folded.

"Cub," Boss says. "Get out."

"Do you want me to leave?" Ghost says to Siti.

Siti glances between them. She nods.

Ghost leaves.

**_Ten_ **

When Ghost is gone, worried look a lingering memory, Boss says, "You will write a report about him."

Siti curls in on herself in the chair, hugging her legs close.

"We will use it to watch all the travellers," Boss says. "If we see him, he dies."

No one's ever promised that before.

Boss settles back, hands folded, and says, "What happened to the child?"

Siti freezes.

"So there was a child," Boss says. "I thought so. You're younger than you look, but not too young for that."

Siti buries her head in her arms and tries to ignore her.

**_Eleven_ **

Words rouse her from drowsy sleep. Hand on her head, stroking, soothing.

"You can't be sure he's still in the area," Ghost says. Far.

Close, Boss. "He got away with it. As far as he knows, she's dead and gone. Of course he's still here. Predators claim a territory and keep to it."

Quiet.

"He'll have a boy with him," Boss says. "Younger than ten, at a guess. If we don't get to him, our problem will be twofold before the decade's out."

More quiet.

Soft. Aching. Ghost. "I'll tell the radio crew to keep it quiet. For her sake."

**_Twelve_ **

Ghost's Mace is a man whose mind is never still.

Ghost introduces him at dinner, eyes flickering between them. He bows and kisses the back of Siti's hand, and stays a careful distance from her. Siti stares at him, trying to imagine Ghost under this man, wanting this man, and cannot quite understand it.

Siti tries not to be wary of him. She fails.

But he is polite, and he kisses Ghost so gentle goodnight, and leaves them to curl into each other. Ghost hums for her until she falls asleep in Siti's bed, all loose hair and soft skin.

**_Thirteen_ **

Siti rises in the night.

She has become used to the way the big house creaks, the fixes, the holes. Ghost says they're going to fix it up through summer, paint the walls and fix the floors, seal up gaps and spent a year or more cleaning the stone and refilling gaps, that they found a real mason to come and do it.

Siti hopes some of the creaks stay.

Ghost's room is down the hallway, and the one she's going to is further. The door isn't locked. She creeps in, to a room shadowed and quiet, and she hesitates.

**_Fourteen_ **

Too long.

Mace lies in twisted blankets, so she doesn't quite see when he stirs, eyes opening.

"Hello," he says, voice low. "What is it?"

She takes a faltering step towards him, two, three, until she's by the bed, and she stares at him. Now she can see his shoulders, wide and strong, the moonlit depth of brown eyes, she thinks she might understand what Ghost likes. He stays still, even when she reaches out to touch his skin, finds it warm. Not unpleasant.

Mace is not... him.

Mace lays his hand over hers, moving slowly. She flinches and runs.

**_Fifteen_ **

Winter is winter is winter, cold and still. Ghost pulls Siti outside, wrapped up in all her winter clothes, and only the thought of a hot drink and the warm kitchen stops Siti from running straight back in. Ghost wants to show her Manor, the houses, the fields, the noisy bird farm and reintroduce her to the donkeys and ponies. It's vast, expansive, white as death and full of people who laugh to see her wrapped up like a ball.

But they sign their greetings to her, and don't try to touch her.

Siti smiles like she wants to cry.

**_Sixteen_ **

When Ghost is with her Mace, Siti stays away. When she's with Siti, or out of Manor, Siti visits.

Sometimes he wakes. Sometimes he doesn't.

This time he wakes.

She sits on the bed and lets him hold her hand, telling her about the arcane ways of wires and circuits, voice a low rumble. It's fascinating, to watch his mind whirl, words shaping the air into knowledge.

She blinks and he's closer than she expects. Blinks again and he's kissing her. Soft. Careful.

It is... pleasant. Something like good. But his hands curve on her hips and she flinches away.

**_Seventeen_ **

Spring feels like a blessing.

The sun is finally warm, and people and animals fill the fields of Manor. Mace is amongst them. Ghost is out in the wild spaces more often, reporting on water levels and tree damage and anything new and different and strange, so Siti sits on a fence in the general area of Mace.

She has nothing to do. She never knew farming, and they see her as small, weak, and will not let her help. Not until a man with grey-white hair comes up to meet her and says, "Let's find you something to do."

**_Eighteen_ **

He's called One.

She's not entirely sure why he's called after a number, but he seems to like it.

He doesn't sign when he talks, but he understands her responses. "Arthritis," he said, patting his right arm. "You've got a good hand. I could use that."

He takes her to the part of the big house she hasn't gone before, full of maps, papers, reports. He sets her to writing, dictating notes and letters, and this work, with spring light filtering through the windows and the smell of spiced buns rising up from the kitchen, she thinks she could like.

**_Nineteen_ **

Leander is good, too. Kind. Tired. He tries not to ignore her, but it's hard for him because One does, leaving her to make notes on what they talk about during their daily meetings.

Once, he turns to her and says, "Be good to them."

She blinks back.

"You will always have Manor behind you," he says, "If you're good to them."

She nods like she understands, and he seems satisfied.

The papers she likes most, organising them into dates and subjects, peering through the history of Manor. There are birth and death registers, and chronicles. She learns to understand.

**_Twenty_ **

There's a single page in one of the chronicles that talks about a man who isn't here. It's not in One's handwriting, or Leander's, or Boss'.

Siti asks Ghost about it.

Ghost says, "I love him," like he isn't dead. "Always. But he wasn't in a good place. I had to choose."

Had to choose, like she hadn't written down _I shot him_.

"I love you," Ghost says. "I love Mace. I love him. It exists together."

Siti wants to ask if Ghost would kill her like she killed that man she loved. Or how she makes it sound simple.

**_Twenty One_ **

Mace never visits her. He waits.

He kisses her more often than not, testing the edges between them. She cannot let him near her neck, the way she can Ghost. Does not like to be held by him, the way Ghost holds her. Trembles the one time she's under him, both dressed in night-clothes, bolts all the way across the room when he sees and lets her go.

But she keeps coming back.

She likes to lie next to him, she thinks, to rest her head against his shoulder and listen to him talk the world into reason and rules.

**_Twenty Two_ **

It is the end of spring, turning to summer, when she steps foot in Manor's library.

It's a big stone building, built well. Light, airy, untidy with books. She is not here of her own will. It's the quietest place in Manor.

_Renovations_ , Leander called the noisy, chaotic work on the big house. Siti called it chaos, amongst other, stronger words that earned her one of his wide-eyed looks and One's unstoppable laughter.

The books still smell a little like salt.

Despite herself, she spends the day reading in a corner, like the old couple that saved a dying girl.

**_Twenty Three_ **

"When's your birthday?" Ghost asks, one night.

Siti shrugs. She used to know, but time slipped away in her sea-town. She knows she is twenty six, knows she was born on what her mother swore was the hottest day of summer, but that was in another part of the world, where winters were warmer and wetter, and summers baking hot.

She tells Ghost this.

Ghost says, "The solstice, then." She leans into Siti, hand light on Siti's hip. "I was born in summer, too. Three weeks into the seventh month."

It's the right time for her warm Ghost, Siti thinks.

**_Twenty Four_ **

She does not mean to.

Mace misses dinner.

She misses Mace, telling her about something he's fixing over bread and soup and vegetables, quiet and intense, Misses Ghost laughing at him. Not the quiet, constant fear she feels when Ghost is away, but an ache, a worry.

She visits him. His workroom is underground, in the expansive mass of cellars. It's dry down here, and cool, and dark. She carries a lantern to see by, but the workroom is so bright it shines down the hallway, a beacon in darkness.

Soft, familiar sounds echo out. Laughter. And -

Siti hesitates.

Runs.

**_Twenty Five_ **

There is something going on that she can't quite see. People are keeping it from her. It's a gap in One's papers, quiet conversations people have without her.

She thinks she knows. She doesn't want to admit to it, see it, name it. She lets them think it's still a secret.

Summer warms into true heat. Siti spends her free time in the library and avoids Ghost, does not visit Mace. She knows, knew, was not blind, does not begrudge them, thinks she might love them, but her insides twist when she thinks too long, so she tries not to.

**_Twenty Six_ **

It's Boss that comes into the library, pulls a book out of her hand and says, "Stop being ridiculous."

Siti flinches.

"Talk to them," Boss says, "And get it done with. Bay's useless to me when she's moping."

The idea of Ghost moping does not seem right. She signs as much, then asks, trembling, if they really need her.

Boss says, "Wolves need their pack," and Siti doesn't understand that, either, but Boss says it like it's important. "Talk to them." She pauses. "Or else."

And she takes the book with her which, Siti thinks, is the epitome of unfair.

**_Twenty Seven_ **

She visits.

The door's ajar. They're asleep under a bed sheet, not touching, Ghost turned towards the window and Mace on his back.

She sits on the bed, cross-legged.

Ghost stirs. Murmurs, soft, "What is it?" then at silence sits up, like she knows, and says, "Siti, love -" and stops. Reaches out. Takes her hand. "Did I forget you again?" she says.

Siti shakes her head.

"Come here," she says, and tugs. Siti obeys, lets Ghost pull her into the middle of them, where she can lean into sleepy Mace and have Ghost lean on her, warm and safe.


End file.
